Replication README for "Fiscal Stimulus or Debt Relief: The Effect of Federal Pandemic Aid on State and Local Pensions" (Brang, Chan, and St.Clair, 2025)

This file is designed to allow users to replicate the results shown in graphs and tables in Brang, Chan, and St.Clair (2025). All of the results in the paper derive from publicly available datasets, most notably the Public Plans Data (https://publicplansdata.org/public-plans-database/download-full-data-set/).

The replication package contains a data folder and four do files. The data folder contains all the data files necessary to replicate the results. The do file "Assembling Analytic Sample" details the construction of the main analytic sample from the Public Plans Data and other data sources. The do files "Assembling Descriptive Sample" and "Assembling State-Level Analytic Sample" detail the construction of the descriptive sample used in Figures 1-2 and the state-level sample used in Table 4. The "Analysis" file contains the code for replicating all of the tables and figures in the text using the different data samples. 


